26/11 Pak response: BJP, Cong to benifit

New Delhi : The ripples of Pakistan astonishing confession on the Mumbai attacks are being felt in the political heart of India. In the run up to the elections, the congress party is set to project the confession as a success of its government's coercive diplomacy

“We had kept at it for the last 3 months, now there's been a change in Pakistan's tone,” says Kapil Sibal.

But the congress's election pitch on Pakistan will be more subtle than shrill.

The party is mindful that the diplomatic offensive is a work in progress and ought not be derailed by triumph and to drive home that point, in parliament, Pranab Mukherjee asked Pakistan to prosecute and convict not the just the men named in the FIR but also their masterminds and handlers -- the top leadership of the Lashkar e Toiba and shut down the terror camps and the terror groups long used to carry out a proxy war on India

The BJP leaders will find it harder now to target the congress for being soft on terror.

But publicly the party has signaled that Pakistan and its post 26/11 steps will remain a campaign issue as will the issue of local support for 26/11

“After Kargil international opinion in our favour, but this time, we are yet to know the results of the investigation,” says Ananth Kumar.

Pakistan's next steps are uncertain, but the politics over 26/11 only looks to intensify.

Meanwhile, Pakistan does seem to be moving against one Lashkar leader- the man India believes was the Mumbai attack mastermind.

The Chief of Pakistan's Federal investigating agency probing the 26/11 attack in Pakistan has said that an FIR has been lodged against Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi.